First day solo in Istanbul

The next day the big meetings began as did my solo investigation of Istanbul. I decided in the beginning that I would take the bus as a way to cut down on travel costs (taxis) and when I arrived at the bus station it was a bit challenging but I managed a bus ride to the hotel. As I started to hop on the bus headed toward the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia I noticed that this bus operated differently though--I couldn't pay, I had to use tickets. I tried to figure out what the deal was but I don't speak Turkish so I was a little concerned.

Then a man on the bus sitting next to a woman spoke up and asked me if needed any help. I told him my situation and he spoke with some girls that were seated behind him and they gave me a bus ticket. I was totally surprised. It turned out that the man, Mehmet was Turkish, from the Kurdish region, but emigrated to the UK twenty-some odd years ago. He was with his 3 daughters and his youngest sister, the girls aunt. I stayed on the bus not knowing exactly where to go and when we neared some mosques I asked the girls when I should get off the bus. They told me they were headed there too, so I should just get off the bus when they did, so I followed them. Once we arrived they asked me what my plans were and I said I wanted to see Aya Sophia and the Blue mosque and from there I didn't know. They told me just to follow them. We got in line to buy tickets to Aya Sophia and the Mehmet managed to get ahead of me in the line.

He came back to his wife, sister and daughters and then called me over to join them--he had bought us all tickets. From that point on they took me all around the city with them, showing me everything and not allowing me to pay for anything. At one point Mehmet told me he was surprised I was alone and told me to be very careful because people would try to cheat a young girl alone. It was really fun hanging out with their family, the girls were hilarious, they were 9, 14 and 16 and it was really funny to watch them interact. We first saw the Aya Sophia, then we wandered around the gardens outside the Blue Mosque.

Pictured here are Mehmet's Daughters the youngest (I forgot her name) Imran, me and Rose. We are inside the Aya Sophia on the stairs near the hallway leading to the second floor.